FARNBOROUGH: EADS Astrium models secure military satellite

12 July, 2012

SOURCE: Flight Daily News

BY: Dan Thisdell

London

EADS Astrium (OE13) showed a model of what it claims is the world's most sophisticated satellite for secure military communications. The company's Paradigm business already has three in geostationary orbit, with a fourth currently in testing in Toulouse before it is shipped to the European Space Agency's launch centre in Kourou, French Guiana, for a November or December Ariane 5 flight to complete the constellation.

The Skynet spacecraft, he adds, are hardened against all attack or interference and feature a novel technology in the form of steering vanes that use solar wind to keep them on station in their fixed geostationary orbit. Critically, such automatic station-keeping saves fuel and should extend spacecraft service life.

The Skynet 4 satellites, by contrast, are geosynchronous, meaning they are held in East-West position but can drift slightly North and South. As a result, Paradigm is able to sell a communications channel to the US Antarctic Survey station for two hours a day.

Paradigm has a yearly turnover of some £350 billion and employs 300 people, mostly in the UK. "We've taken a commercial model to military communications," says Hadfield.